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Baskets of Hope in the Land of Giants
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, July 17, 2005
It must have been some send off. You see, what happened, as
you will find in the early part of Numbers 13, Moses had brought the Hebrews out
of bondage in Egypt. They had crossed the Red Sea. They had gone through the
early formation period where they complained about almost everything. Moses had
come down from the mountain with the tablets of stone that had the Ten
Commandments but now, now they were at the edge of their future – the Promised
Land and Moses said, pick one out of each tribe. There were twelve tribes –
pick one and we’re going to send them out to explore the land and they did. And
they sent them out, the best of the best.
You know it must have been a little bit like the Lewis and
Clark expedition of 200 years ago when President Thomas Jefferson in our country
having somehow negotiated the sale from Napoleon who needed the money of most of
the western half of our nation, we call it the Louisiana Purchase and he wanted
to find out, did President Jefferson, what’s out there? Who lives there? And
that’s what Moses wanted to know about the Land of Promise and if you will look
for example in verse 17, the job description Moses gave them could have been the
job description that President Jefferson gave Lewis and Clark. Listen as I read
it, “Go through the desert and on into the hill country and see what the land is
like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.
What kind of land do they live in? Is it good, is it bad? What kind of towns
do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it
fertile or course? Are there trees there? Do your best to bring back some of
the fruit of the land.”
It was the season for the first ripe grapes and when they
returned, what a time it was! But I suspect there was a time when they didn’t
hear anything, just like Lewis and Clark; they didn’t hear anything from them.
You see, there wasn’t any e-mail, no cell phones, no telegraph, no old-fashioned
phones, not even dial phones! They didn’t have any way of communicating and so
the whispers probably started. I wonder if they’re still alive? Well, when
they got back what a celebration it was and then came the report and the
report…the report from ten of them was wow! The land is wonderful! Verse 27,
“We went into the land that you sent us and it does flow with milk and honey!
Here is its fruit.” There was a cluster of grapes. You’ve seen Bible pictures
of it where it took two men to carry that cluster of grapes, but then the ten
said, oh, they’re powerful and the cities are fortified and there are giants in
the land who are descenders of Anak! Anak was a group of people who were very
tall, had long necks and very strong. And they said, we can’t go there. There
were two, Caleb and Joshua, verse 30, “Caleb silenced the people before Moses
and said, we should go up and take possession of the land for we certainly can
do it!” A-ha! Good old Baptist meeting!
Now friends, we all have giants in our land. Most of them,
if we’re grown-ups, they’re inner giants; fears, anxieties…let me ask you, you
who are parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, when you look at the future
and you stand on the edge of the boundary and you look at it, don’t you see the
giants?
I was hearing the other day of this immense, incredible
gift we’ve been given in technology and yet, how that’s been misused in so many
ways. There are now thousands of websites that have to do with pornography.
There was a TV special the other night on the way in which middle schools and
high schools have become absolutely addicted to playing poker on the Internet
and then they’ve gotten together and of course their parents, they’re glad
they’re not on drugs and they’re glad they’re not out on the streets, but they
can’t get them to do sports, they can’t get them to do studies, they can’t get
them to get out of the house, they are addicted to gambling. All in the giant
category…just think about the world we live in and the giants we fear.
Huntington over at UVA talks about the eventual clash
between the Muslim East and the “civilized” West. Giants in the land…you know
what Jesus said? Jesus said there are always, always, always going to be giants
in the land. Turn to Matthew the 13th chapter. There is a group of
parables. These parables speak about the fact that there will always be evil.
In the 13th chapter there is the parable of the weeds. The Kingdom
of Heaven, Jesus said, is like a man who sowed good seed in his field but while
everyone was sleeping the enemy came and sowed weed around the wheat and went
away and the owners servants came to him at harvest time and said, where did the
weeds come from? An enemy did this, he said. Well, do you want us to go pull
them up? He said, no. Let them grow together until the harvest and then at
that time we will collect the weeds, put them in bundles burn them, then we will
bring the wheat into my harvest. They say to him later in verse 36, what does
this mean that you told us about and he answered, the one who sowed the good
seed is the Son of man and the field is the world and the good seed stands for
the Sons of the Kingdom and the weeds are the Sons of the evil one and the enemy
who sows them is the devil. And the harvest is the end of the age and the
harvesters are angels and so forth. The Son of Man will send out His angels and
at the end of the age they will be the great division.
The parable of the net is the second one. Its in verse 47.
The net had all kinds of fish in it. They bring it all to the shore like it
will be at the end of the age and then the good fish are divided from the poor
fish. You see, what Jesus was saying was, it is always going to be true in your
life that there are giants in the land. You can either fasten your attention on
the giants or on the one who knows how to overcome the giants. By the way,
these two parables show that good and evil exist in the teachings of Jesus until
the very end of time and this is one of the truths that the Left Behind books
left behind. Good and evil exist to the end of time.
Now, our choice is how do we join God in overcoming the
giants in the land? Your immediate response is God, send them some giants, and
whip them! Our immediate response is to meet army with army, force with force,
strength with strength, but you see, Jesus gave us the clue long ago when He
said, the Kingdom is like a seed growing secretly, but there are three stories
that allow me to talk about how God does His thing and He does it in such a
wonderful, marvelous, miraculous way that you’re likely to miss it unless you
keep an eye open. For example, if we had the time I’d go back and show you
Exodus the second chapter and in that second chapter you will discover that the
Pharaoh, because the Hebrew people were so prolific, having so many sons and
daughters, he made a decree that all the boy babies be destroyed, thrown into
the Nile and there was a mother who couldn’t stand that. She took up a papyrus
basket, made it with pitch, made it with tar so it was water proof and put the
baby in the basket and floated it out in the Nile among the reeds about where
Pharaoh’s daughter would be bathing and sure enough she saw the basket and there
was the baby crying. She took the baby in her arms. The daughter of the mother
had been stationed in case she did pick up the baby and feel sorry for it and
said, you’ll need a mother to nurse it won’t you. I guess I will. Yes, do you
know one? Guess who the baby was? Moses. Now, give me a thought. You’re
standing there; you’re watching the whole thing. What would you think about the
possibility of that baby floating in the Nile River, picked up by Pharaoh’s
daughter, having Moses mother actually be the mother? What would you think
about that baby being the one who would grow up and emancipate the Hebrews from
Egypt? Get them out of there…what would you think that he would become the
great lawgiver? You see, God begins with baskets, with little children, with
little babies and in unlikely places. God has His people everywhere and if you
don’t understand that you don’t understand how God overcomes giants.
Let’s go to David and Goliath. You have a Goliath in your
life, everybody has a Goliath in their life, something they fear. You remember
Goliath? If we had the time we’d turn to First Samuel 17. Goliath was 9 feet
tall, woo-wee! Don’t you know he would have been picked first in the NBA draft!
Here’s a little boy – the whole nation is afraid of a giant in the land and
David takes in his shepherd’s pouch five smooth stones and you remember during
our 40 Days of Purpose I preached on the five smooth stones. Let me tell you,
when he threw that one and it hit Goliath and Goliath fell – just like crumpled
– what happens in my life when I pick up a fine smooth stone, what it usually
is, is a scripture verse and when the Goliath comes the Lord has a way of giving
me a scripture verse. That’s why you need to remember scripture. That’s why we
need to do a better job, older folks like us, of memorizing the scripture. You
say I don’t know any. Well, let me give you one. It’s in Ephesians and it’s
simply, I’m making it simple, He is able’ He meaning God. God is able; three
simple words out of scripture to slay a Goliath. God is able. A smooth stone
and the Goliath in your life shrinks.
And what about that grandest time of all when Jesus was
born? Do you remember? On that night nobody important was anywhere around. As
a matter of fact, all God had to deal with was some straw and a barn and some
soft cloths and Mary and Joseph. And the shepherds finally came and later on
the wise men, but at the beginning, Mary and Joseph, the straw, soft cloths and
a manger. Had you been there that night what chance had you have given that
little baby would become the Savior of the world? Would be God in the flesh?
Would be God’s great gift to all of us?
You remember 11-9-89? Not 9-11, 11-9-89, do you remember
what happened? The Berlin Wall fell…freedom…Eastern European countries that
hadn’t had it so long and it was as if somebody pulled a switch and the church
bells began to ring everywhere and do you remember that on one little church
yard a homemade sign stuck in the ground that said, the baby in the manger wins
again! God’s baskets of hope!
Let me tell you what to do with the giants in your life.
The first one is, develop an eye for God floating to you -- His baskets of
hope. Second, develop in your mind some scripture that like five smooth stones
can slay the Goliaths that show up on your horizon. And most of all, let the
Lord Christ become your Lord Christ, never leaving, never forsaking, always
there as your surrender your life to Him.
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